APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 2/2/09 Attending: Suzanne Hawley, Scott Anderson, Mark Klaene, Bill Ketzeback, John Bally, Remy Indebetouw, Bruce Gillespie, Michael Strauss, Al Harper, Jon Holtzman, Cynthia Froning, and Jon Fulbright Absent: none ********************************** User feedback, comments from institutional representatives: Princeton (Michael Strauss) - Michael said there were no concerns. Princeton astronomers are currently at APO for an observing run. Suzanne appreciated their help in accomodating a late schedule change. Colorado (John Bally) - John reported that John Stocke recently used the new NIC-FPS filter focus offsets, and they seemed to work well. Suzanne added we should now be using these offsets routinely, and to make sure that they are well-documented in the users manual. Johns Hopkins (Jon Fulbright) - Jon had nothing to report. Washington (Scott Anderson) - Scott had nothing to report. Chicago (Al Harper) - Al had nothing to report, other than to remark that the UC astronomers are interested in the outcome of the tertiary pointing problems and the focus offsets for the NIC-FPS narrow-band filters. New Mexico State (Jon Holtzman) - Jon had nothing to report. Virginia (Remy Indebetouw) - Remy had nothing to report. ********************************** Discussion of telescope/instruments report - Klaene: Mark pointed to the good weather (albeit with variable seeing) that we've enjoyed during the past month. The principal telescope issue has been pointing problems, of around 3 arcminutes, that are suspected to be related to the tertiary mirror mount. Significant engineering work has gone into investigating the problem so far, and much of next week will be spent trying to track down and fix the problem. In the meantime, operational workarounds have been effective in minimizing down time. The instruments are all working relatively well. We're still progressing on getting CU/UVa to replace the NIC-FPS fan-out board (John Bally will check status). Agile is ready to move to the new side port on the telescope, but this work has been held up by the problem with the tertiary mirror mount. ************************* 3.5-m Telescope, Instruments, and CIF Projects Highlights, 1/8/09 through 1/28/09 Mark Klaene 0) Overview Telescope problems were generally associated with pointing and the tertiary. Instruments were operational this period. Generally clear skies prevailed with moderate temperatures. 1) Telescope NA2 axis controller continues to perform well. Tertiary rotation: The tertiary is now rotating well, but when it arrives at a port, there have been issues with the mirror tilts being applied. Multiple problems with the B actuator were uncovered. One of the problems was mechanical that prompted a replacement of the actuator itself. Another intermittent problem is also occurring, causing significant pointing errors. This is still under investigation since we can not seem to get it to repeat while troubleshooting during the day. We will be carrying out additional work on the tertiary during the February engineering run. 2) Instruments DIS, SPIcam, and Echelle are fully operational. NIC-FPS is operational with no problems. We are still waiting for UVa to design and build up a new NIC-FPS fan-out board that will hopefully address the residual readout noise. Currently UVa and CU are reviewing the design. TripleSpec mounting is still occasionally giving us some problems, but recent modifications and more training seem to have improved the situation. The current state is more problematic than we would like, but the situation is tolerable at the moment. Agile is still available at NA2. TUI timing tests are in work to verify precision timing. Rotator testing has been delayed in order to focus on the tertiary issues. APOLLO remains operational. The high-precision gravimeter is now slated for arrival in February, and preparations are in progress for its installation at the 3.5-m. 3) CIF projects Preparation continues for an early March direct-drive CDR. ********************************** New/upgraded instrument plans - Hawley This topic is about the planning process to upgrade our direct visible- imaging capability, the echelle, and a newly discussed proposal to upgrade the Goddard Fabry-Perot (GFP) after recent discussions at the site with Bruce Woodgate. On the latter, Bruce Woodgate is planning to upgrade the GFP detector to improve sensitivity, and add an integral-field unit to its optics, which will afford IFU capability for spectroscopy over a 7 or 14 arcsecond field. We want to hear if the user community would find the GFP more generally useful for science if these improvements are made. Bruce Woodgate and Carol Grady have also offered to run a GFP training class for potential users. Suzanne has asked Bruce Woodgate to write a white paper on the GFP upgrades that we can send around to the general user community--we'll discuss this further at the next Users Committee meeting. In the meantime, Suzanne asked the Users Committee members to think about the GFP and upgrades and talk to their users about it. Suzanne added that Eric Burgh (CU) is leading the planning to upgrade the echelle; a memo was sent around last week to the users to provoke discussion. Cynthia Froning (CU, with John Bally) is looking at upgrading or replacing SPIcam. The trades between field-of-view and specialized capabilities are being explored. She plans to send a general call to the users asking for input, and in parallel will form a small working group to define priorities and help lead the design and implementation. Suzanne said that 1 or 2 interested people from each institution should join this working group, and asked that the Users Committee member each nominate people from their institutions and send their names to Cynthia (cynthia.froning at colorado.edu), copied to Suzanne. Note: there are two other white papers for new instruments presently in circulation, both from Jian Ge at U. Florida. One is for a high resolution NIR spectrograph, the other for a NIR Doppler interferometer for precision radial velocities. Both would use fiber feeds from the echelle port. Feedback on these ideas is also welcome. Users committee reps are asked to discuss all of these instrument options with their communities. ********************************** IYA at APO - Klaene Make reported that for the International Year of Astronomy, APO will be featured in a 20-minute segment during a 100-hour webcast on April 3. On April 10, a half night of engineering time will be used to host a public open house at the 3.5-m. Bill asked if Adler had any interest in participating, and in restarting their Friday-night Adler public program about APO. Al said he would ask, and report next month. ********************************** Decadal Survey input - Hawley There are two Decadal Survey groups within infrastructure studies that have overlap with topics of interest for the 3.5-m (partnerships, funding, private and moderate-aperture telescopes). There may be opportunities to contribute white papers on these topics to the study groups, in the context of our situation and plans. Suzanne asked that all users give her input on what issues they feel need representation. ********************************** ACTION ITEMS: [open from previous months]: ACTION: Focus offsets for the various NIC-FPS filters need to be determined, documented for the users, and automated corrections implemented in the operations software. STATUS: Closed. We have posted the offset numbers for NIC-FPS filter focus offsets on the website. For now, users should check with the Observing Specialists to insure that the offsets are being applied. Another set of offset measurements will be made as a lower priority in monthly engineering time, and if users want to contribute some of their time for these measurements, they should talk to Bill Ketzeback or Russet McMillan. The issue of applying automatic offsets via instrument and telescope control software will be added to the list of engineering projects. John Bally will consult with Stephane Beland about the role of the NIC-FPS ICC. [new actions from this meeting]: none ********************************** Next meeting: The next Users Committee phonecon will be on Monday, 2 March, at 8:30 AM Pacific Time. The agenda and other materials will be sent to the committee members during the preceding week. APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 1125 in the apo35-general archive. 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